Solar Awnings-Plus for Commercial Buildings

So often buildings have huge view windows, but once the realization of the need for shade arises, they just get curtained from inside, blocking the views. It’s sad.

How much more useful it would be to use an awning to capture all that free sunshine, with adjustable solar shades. A shade that you could wind outwards from inside would be just perfect, like this Solar Awning design by xClinic to be tested at a pilot installation on the Bronx River Arts Center (BRAC) and NYU student housing.

But this design goes one better than a simple solar shade. It is a complete mini ecosystem……that makes its own complete closed-loop environment; providing not just solar power over the window to shade and power at the same time,Â but also, inside the eaves – a bird sanctuary from the city’s harsh environment – and a vegetable garden window boxÂ – under the window.

In a commercial downtown area, with maybe fifty to hundred feet of a sheer vertical space, the solar generation could really add up, and in that environment birds really do lack alternatives for nesting spots because we are edging them out of our cities.

So, underneath the awning, a space for bird nesting and rehabilitation is created using the awning supports for structure, with a little netting strung between the two supports to create habitats for bird species otherwise being pushed out of urban areas. The bird droppings from the nesting area will nourish the little garden, instead of going to waste on the city’s streets.